WARSAW, Oct 29 (AFP) - An international AIDS conference rang alarm bells on Wednesday, warning of a spiralling number of deaths from AIDS in eastern Europe unless people there are given equal treatment to sufferers in the West.
"These countries will be confronted with a high death-rate in 10 years if the now HIV-infected patients don't get access to treatment which is standardised in Western Europe," the European AIDS Clinical Society said in a statement at the end of a five-day gathering here.
There was a "dramatic situation in Eastern Europe" it said.
The conference, which brought together some 2,500 delegates, mainly doctors, from 51 countries, including 250 from the former Soviet Union, takes place just six months before the European Union embraces eight countries from the former communist bloc.
However the conference said the AIDS problem was most rampant beyond the EU's future border, in the countries of the former Soviet Union.
It said that of some two million people who are HIV positive on the European continent, 1.2 million live in Russia and Ukraine, and other former Soviet bloc countries, with some 280,000 to 300,000 people being infected every year.
"In this part of the European continent the situation is sometimes worse than in Africa, where the number of infections is tragic, but at least they are starting to do something," Professor Christine Katlama, of the Paris' Pitie-Salpetriere hospital, who chaired the conference told AFP.
"I often count more people receiving treatment in Mali than in some of these countries where it is more difficult to find drugs than in Senegal," she said.
Katlama said in the conference's statement that with early treatment AIDS could be delayed by many years.
"We can consider today, that a patient seeking early medical help, can retard the outbreak of AIDS for decades," she said.
Polish doctor Andrzej Horban told the conference that in Poland, one of eight former communist bloc countries on course to join the EU on May 1, 2004, those needing treatment got it.
But he said that people were now leaving eastern Europe to seek treatment in the West because of the unavailability of treatment.
The conference urged governments not to rest on their laurels and maintain their information campaigns, stressing "safe sex is still the only real protection against the virus."
And she urged governments not to become complacent because of a declining number of infections.
"Even decreasing numbers of infections should not weaken efforts," she said. "This would lead to the fact that people at high potential risk feel safe, drop their guard and seek treatment too late."
Dr Mike Youle, who attended the conference from Britain, said that cure was more expensive than prevention.
"Complacency on this issue damages the health system of our industrial nations," he said.
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